For all the hype and very real potential, it's hard not to observe that the market has failed to develop as rapidly as had been predicted - despite the fact that bullish sentiments have never really waned over the years.

In the current economic climate, marketers and business owners need to take a close look at how they can improve the effectiveness of their websites.

Whilst the economic downturn is unlikely to result in any decline in online volume, we are already starting to see online business growth start to slow slightly, as consumers tighten their belts in the face of escalating food and fuel bills, as well as rising borrowing costs.

Last week, E-consultancy's Graham Charlton discussed the benefits of running a corporate blog.

As more and more companies are asking employees to blog (or considering asking employees to blog) in an official capacity, one of the things that goes unrecognized is the importance of using a blogging platform that is easy to set up and easy to maintain for multiple users.

It’s an area that is overlooked on many websites, but URL design is an important consideration. Bad URLs may mean that you website won’t be found, visited, or submitted to sites like Digg.

Ideally, URLs should be short, readable, descriptive and memorable. Visitors to your site, other sites linking to yours, and of course the search engines will appreciate the care you have taken over your URL structure.